


Honey, I'm Home

by splashfree



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Friendship, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Intimacy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splashfree/pseuds/splashfree
Summary: "'Concussion,' Akira explains, side-eying him. 'You got hit in the head with a pipe. That's a concern.' "Akechi gets injured and Akira patches him up.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 7
Kudos: 144





	Honey, I'm Home

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago, I saw a post on Twitter that went something like, "Imagine the villain showing up at the hero's door injured and alone, saying 'I had no place else to go.'" And then this fic wrote itself. 
> 
> I have a tendency to self-reference as a fic-writer, and this is no exception. While I think it reads fine as a stand-alone, in my mind it falls under the same universe as my other Akeshu fic ["Of Feeling and Consequence,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603211/chapters/51511543) about one year after its (currently unpublished) sequel...which is to say, some Further Developments occur between Akira and Akechi after OFaC and before this fic that are only obliquely referenced here, but my hope is to give you all a proper and detailed account of those developments at some point....
> 
> Anyway, I am beyond delighted that so many people enjoyed my take on these two (thank you so much for all your lovely comments -- they truly brighten my day!) and while this is just a really simple fic, I hope you find something you enjoy here as well.

When Akira hears the knock on LeBlanc's front door at thirty minutes to midnight, he thinks it's the finicky old lady from next door come to lecture him for putting the garbage out too early again. _Look,_ he thinks, winding around the bar with a sigh, _it's not my fault Sojiro decided anchovies are the secret ingredient du jour. Besides, the stray cats don't bother our cans; I have a guy on the inside._ His argument is assembled and ready for deployment when he opens the door. 

But who he finds isn't his neighbor: it's Akechi. And all Akira ends up saying is, " _Oh shit,_ " just as Akechi calmly supplies, "Good evening," as though half of his face isn't completely drenched in blood. 

"I'm sorry," Akechi continues, his left eye sewn shut under the deluge. "I just didn't know where else to go." 

"Akechi, what--" Akira moves hastily aside and pulls Akechi indoors with a hand on his arm, a hand under which Akechi flinches. "What--happened--!?"

"I was mugged, if you can believe it," Akechi explains as breezily as he might recall the specials at his favorite restaurant. The shoulder underneath Akira's hand is shivering.

"Holy shit..." 

Akira shuts the front door behind him, locks it. Ushers Akechi onto the nearest barstool and half-runs to the bathroom for the first-aid kit. 

When he comes back, Akechi is gingerly testing his eyebrow, examining the blood on his shaking fingers. 

"There were several of them," he's rambling. "I was careless, they-- Well, this truly is a great deal of blood, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Akira agrees, coming around to stand in front of him with a damp towel. "You okay? Gonna pass out? Be sick?"

"No, no," Akechi mutters. "I'm fine, this is nothing...this is...." 

He doesn't quite finish his thought, and he doesn't have to; Akira knows better than anyone that the Phantom Thieves were no strangers to blood and injury back in their day. But without the haze of the Metaverse to put them into context, Akechi's injuries are too stark to romanticize and too real for comfort. 

"Let me see," says Akira, and Akechi allows it.

The blood, it seems, is seeping from a cut at his hairline, and Akechi hisses at the press of the towel. 

"Sorry," says Akira. 

"Don't be," says Akechi, his voice tight. 

"Not sure what'd be quicker," Akira quips if only to loosen his own nerves, "wiping you off or just spraying you down with a hose."

"You have my permission to try both." 

Thankfully, it's not nearly as bad as it looks; once the blood is cleared, the cut turns out to be long, but quite manageable. Akechi holds his bangs and Akira affixes the bandages.

"Just like old times, huh?" Akira hears himself say.

Akechi's laugh is a breathy, hollowed-out sound, and not at all unpleasant. "I do believe," he says, "our positions were more often reversed, were they not?" And he may be right about that -- Akira remembers more than one instance of reeling into a Safe Room after some reckless display of violence and Crow with a bandage in hand, his eyes reproachful yet amused behind his red mask, an odd parody of a plague doctor. 

"You've got a bump," Akira reports as he finds it, a sizable contusion just above his right ear. He helps Akechi identify it with his own hand, and Akechi winces at the touch. "You feeling dizzy? Nauseous?" 

"I'm fine," Akechi says, dodging the questions. His left cheek is swollen and there's a rosy abrasion there too. Akira frowns.

"Anywhere else that hurts?"

"Just my ribs," Akechi explains. "Although I'd wager they're simply bruised." 

"What happened exactly?" Akira asks. "Do you remember?" 

"What interrogation," Akechi says dryly. "A fine flatfoot you're shaping up to be."

"Why thank you. Answer the question?" 

Akechi sighs, rolls his eyes, and to Akira's surprise, laughs. True and musical. "I got mugged," he says with a smirk. "Poetic, don't you think?"

"Not really," says Akira. "Did you get a good look at the guys who did it?" 

"Why?" Akechi hums, deeply amused. "Going to avenge me?"

"No, I'm going to get Morgana to organize the alleycat underworld and make sure these punks never wear shoes that don't smell like cat piss again." 

"Petty, yet sinister," Akechi says. "I like it." 

"So? Do you remember anything about them?"

"Not really," Akechi says uninterestedly. "One had a knife, and another knocked me to the ground, and another hit me with what must have been a pipe. Then they took my bag and fled. Fairly generic, if you ask me." He smirks, the expression skewed under his swollen eye. "Does that give you enough information, Officer?"

Akira pointedly ignores what Akechi calling him "Officer" inspires in him. "It's a start," he says instead. "Where was this?" 

"Shibuya."

"Well that's no surprise," Akira says. Then it occurs to him. "Wait...they took your phone?"

"And my wallet," Akechi says, and heaves a sigh. "The key to my apartment. Replacing it all is going to be an immense irritation." 

"Akechi," Akira says, "did you _walk_ here!?" 

"I thought that was obvious," Akechi says. "Like I said, I had nowhere else to go--" 

"Bleeding profusely from the head!? For an hour!?"

"It's only about forty minutes."

"Akechi!"

"What else was I supposed to do?" Akechi snaps. "Lie down and die?" 

"No, I--" And Akira realizes that Akechi is right. After all, it's not as if Akechi could have gone to the nearest police box and asked for an ambulance and a phone call while his own wanted picture stared back at him from the bulletin board. He carefully closes his mouth. "I wish I had been there."

"So we both could have been mugged?" Akechi says breezily. "It's hardly an experience I can recommend." 

"I'm glad it was Shibuya, then," says Akira. "I'm glad you came here." 

Akechi opens his mouth for another smart retort and falters when the words don't happen for him. He blinks. Swallows. 

"Yes," he says carefully. "I'm glad as well." 

"You should probably get that bump looked at," Akira begins. 

"I'm fine."

"I can call Doctor Takemi," he offers. "I have her cell and she doesn't ask questions."

"I'm fine," Akechi insists, testing the spot and wincing once more. "I'll see someone in the morning." 

"I can go with you," Akira offers again. "I'll take the day."

"Appreciated," says Akechi, "but unnecessary." 

Silence stretches between them like physical distance. Akira wants to bridge it: his hands close lightly on Akechi's shoulders and he holds him there. Dutifully, Akechi allows himself to be held. 

"I would be much obliged," he mumbles, not meeting Akira's eyes, "if you would accommodate me for the night." 

Akira smiles. "Of course," he says. "Let's get you some ice for that."

There's a bag of edamame in the freezer. Akechi, bathed and in Akira's borrowed clothes, wedges it behind his head like a sadistic pillow as he sits up in bed. Akira tosses on an extra blanket and climbs in next to him, so close their shoulders touch. His bed, once only a humble futon spread across an assortment of packing crates, is mercifully more conducive to sleep these days, but it still only fits the two of them just. It's a discovery they first made almost a year ago, and have often tested since.

Akechi yawns widely beside him.

"Sleepy?" 

"I suppose." Akechi sighs, settles his weight against Akira's right shoulder. "I forgot just how much a beating takes out of a person. My old age must be getting to me." 

"You're not dizzy or nauseous or anything, are you?" Akira asks again. It makes every sense to be tired at this hour without factoring in the sort of day Akechi had, but a more sinister possibility nags at Akira's chest. 

"What?"

"Concussion," Akira explains, side-eying him. "You got hit in the head with a pipe. That's a concern."

Akechi moves to speak, then gusts out his prepared breath in a laugh. "You worry," he says, eyes fluttering shut, "about the stupidest things."

"It's not stupid," Akira insists, nudging him lightly with his elbow. "You know how emotionally scarring that would be? Waking up next to your corpse? Think of the children, Akechi." 

"Yes, yes," Akechi says wryly. "Performing the same trick twice would be terribly gauche, I agree. You'd start to think dropping dead is all I'm capable of."

"Oh, I know what you're capable of," Akira assures him, and Akechi snorts. "But you haven't answered my question." 

Akechi's eyes are closed, but the corner of his lip curves sweetly. "I'm not," he says, "nauseous."

"Or dizzy?"

"I'm sitting next to you, aren't I? Of course I'm dizzy."

Akira steams a laugh through his teeth. "Look," he says in false reproach, "if you think sweet-talking is going to distract me from the issue at hand, you'd be mostly right." 

Akechi chuckles, his eyes slitting open, and he twists, guiding Akira's face to meet him. Precisely, clinically, he kisses him on the mouth. 

It's lingering, but not nearly lingering enough. Akira's lips buzz.

"Turn off the light and come to bed," Akechi orders, and Akira can't argue. 

Returning to his bed in the dark, Akira finds Akechi with his head on the pillow, the bag of edamame still wedged behind his ear. He climbs back in beside him, using the momentum to justify gathering Akechi into his arms. Akechi chuckles softly, his elbow reflexively hooking over Akira's waist. 

"You'd better not wake up dead," Akira mutters, his lips grazing the gauze at Akechi's forehead. 

"Mm." Akechi hums noncommittally. "I suppose that depends on my incentive for waking up alive."

"Well," Akira considers, "for starters there's me," and Akechi snorts. "No seriously, you think you're going to find anyone as smart, charming, and sexy in the afterlife?"

"There is no afterlife," Akechi counters in good humor, "but go on." 

"So there's me," Akira reiterates. "And then there's the breakfast I'm going to make you in the morning."

"How romantic."

"Well, for full disclosure it's going to be leftover curry."

"Yes, I assumed as much."

"But there's also fresh coffee. LeBlanc's specialty blend, steeped with a giant helping of my pure affection."

"By all means," says Akechi, "stick to the approved brewing instructions." 

"Still not convinced?"

"Mmm." Another hum, but maybe a little less noncommittal. "I suppose you've made some compelling points."

"Good." Akira lightly kisses the bandage on Akechi's forehead. "Then we've made a deal, and there's no backing out of it."

"What," Akechi's voice is a whisper, an amused gust of air, "makes you think I won't?"

Akira smiles softly to himself in the dark. "What are you talking about, Akechi?" he says. "You always find your way home."

The retort curling at the back of Akechi's throat fractures under the simple truth of the statement, is swept away by skeptical laughter. "Intolerable," he groans, his temple pressing against the slope of Akira's shoulder. "This coffee had better be worth it." 

"You know it will be." Akira tightens the loop of his arm only slightly, only once. "Sweet dreams, Akechi."

And, grumbling something about the appalling nonsense of it all, Goro Akechi drifts off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found something you liked. Feel free to leave a comment if you are so inspired, and if you enjoyed yourself and haven't checked it out already, my other Akeshu fic is a slow-burn 20k+ monstrosity, ["Of Feeling and Consequence."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603211/chapters/51511543) (In case that sounds like something you need in your life right now, lol.) 
> 
> Anyhow, take care and stay safe out there, and I hope to bring you more fic sometime soon. :)


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